


an education

by villanelle



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 02:31:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4648884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/villanelle/pseuds/villanelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new literature teacher. A peculiar art instructor. And the prospect of a future that she isn't sure she wants. </p><p>Akane's last semester at Ousou turns out to be more eventful than she ever imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an education

**Author's Note:**

> Canon-divergent, boarding school AU because hey, Ousou's hiring policies seemed very questionable anyway.

 

Murasaki, Bashō, Shakespeare, Rousseau.

Scrutinizing the list of authors and their works, Akane’s eyes widened at the extensive assigned reading list on the tablet before her. Surreptitiously, her lowered eyes darted around the classroom to gather the reaction of her peers. Many of the other girls were grimacing. From the seat to her right, a hastily crumpled ball of paper bounced onto her desk. Yuki’s alternative to digital messages ever since teachers had confiscated some tablets last semester. Keeping her gaze focused towards the front of the room, Akane swept the ball onto her lap and waited for their new literature teacher to face the board before she dared to glance down.

_Did someone forget to inform Kougami-sensei that third term is supposed to be easy? This is more reading than I’ve done in years._

“Tsunemori-san.”

Leaning back against the board and tucking his hands into his trouser pockets, their new instructor stared her down. In any other scenario, Akane supposed that she would’ve found the wintry sheen of his eyes to be striking, in a less intimidating way, but at that moment, their teacher’s appraising scrutiny only made her want to bury her face in shame.

And yet, she couldn’t look away in front of the rest of the class. 

“It seems that you’re either quite the overachiever in getting started on the reading already, or you take issue with my list and thus are reading something...uncondoned.”

To her dismay, Akane felt a traitorous flush reddening her cheeks.

“I suspect the latter then,” Kougami said, his tone still relatively neutral, strangely lacking the severity that usually foretold of further humiliation and punishment. He turned back to the board, and Akane released a muted sigh of relief.

Perhaps a little too soon.

“Miss Tsunemori, in case there are future instances of Miss Funahara passing messages to you, I suggest you save them for lunch period. You may find me to be less tolerant should I catch you again.” He paused in his writing, and his dark head tilted so that she could see the profile of his features, the slight upturn to his lips. “Doubly so if I find my name on those notes.”

For the rest of class, Akane restrained herself from looking to her right. To her pleasant surprise, the task wasn’t difficult. Literature had never made its way into her higher tiers of favorite courses, but Kougami-sensei, new as he was and young in comparison to last term’s instructor, articulated a lecture that freely held her attention. From the way his voice trailed and lingered on some authors’ names as he went over the syllabus, she could sense that his interest in the subject was genuine. Whether he would enjoy teaching literature to groups of senior students itching with distraction, well that remained to be seen. As they filed out of the classroom, Akane found herself smiling, still embarrassed but wanting to smoothen the first impression, at their new teacher.

Once they were a considerable distance outside the room, and presumably out of their teacher’s hearing range, Yuki tugged her close and blurted, “Akane, I’m so sorry! I was just so used to that old geezer last semester not picking up on anything, and I could’ve sworn Kougami-sensei was looking at his book when I tossed you the note.”

“Well, he let us off pretty easy so it’s no big deal.”

“That’s true. Seems like this class is gonna be a toughie though, right? I mean, he’s certainly easier on the eyes than ol’ Shishio, but here I was hoping that these next three months would be a breeze so that we could just look forward to graduating. But hey, no matter what, we’re done with Ousou, in just three months!”

“Yeah…” Akane agreed, her smile fading slightly. Graduation in just three months. The upcoming milestone portended an exciting amount of freedom, to a degree. At least, they’d be freed of Ousou, freed to interact with the rest of society, to find their purposes beyond the dictations of the school’s indoctrination. For a short while at least. Her parents weren’t wholly opposed to her working for a period after graduation. High marks across all subjects decorated the reports sent home to her parents, and consequently, they’d already come to envision a future for her. A decent desk job in a safe environment, preferably a governmental or corporate post. More importantly, her parents envisioned an office filled with respectable young men who would want a wife in which such a distinguished education had been invested.

Shaking her head of these daunting thoughts of the future, Akane hastened her steps towards the art studio, the domain of the charming but rather eccentric Shibata-sensei. 

“Tsunemori-san,” he greeted as she entered the room. “I heard you seniors have been graced with the presence of a new teacher for literature? 

“Ah, yes, Kougami-sensei.”

 “Was it a good first meeting?”

Akane laughed good-naturedly. “Let’s just say that Kougami-sensei is not as intimidating as the list of reading he’s assigned us.”

That triggered Shibata’s own chuckle. “Perhaps, he has a true passion for literature. I hope he’ll distribute printed texts for you girls to read. I myself have such a distaste for reading on tablets. They just don’t deliver the same anticipation and gratification of turning physical pages as you wait to devour the next event.”

Shibata’s class was always an eye-opener. Like all other educational institutions throughout Japan, the curriculum at Ousou Academy no longer included history courses. Past the sliding doors of the studio though, Shibata lectured on the transition from Impressionism to Post-Impressionism, the contextual and visual cues that distinguished Hokusai’s landscapes from Hiroshige’s.

His chosen topic for the day was the various localized styles branching from Art Nouveau, and Akane was admiring the glossy, high-resolution photos passed around of Victor Horta’s Hotel Tassel when she heard Shibata ask the girl next to her, “Ah, Miss Oryo, you find Klimt to your liking then?”

Art studio was one of the few classes where students from different years could temporarily intermingle, based on their skill level. Akane had never conversed with Rikako Oryo, but she’d heard much of this transfer student who was a year younger than her. A decade ago, the beguilingly violet-eyed girl would’ve been shunned for having a father that everyone knew was shut away in an institution, but the majority of her junior-year classmates had developed a frenzied magnetism towards Rikako, transforming her from potential social pariah to an untouchable idol instead.

Curious about what Shibata-sensei and Rikako were discussing with such fervor, Akane glanced at the holographically reproduced painting they were examining. A portrait of a woman, framed and made resplendent against a background of gold. Falling over her shoulders was a translucent, filmy robe that bared her breasts, though the subject hardly looked abashed for it. At the lower edge of the painting, barely perceptible, was what appeared to be a man’s head in the woman’s clutches.

“Most artists’ portrayal of Judith focused on her virtue,” Shibata was saying. “But in this portrait, sexuality empowers Judith, and Klimt glorifies her righteousness, don’t you think, Oryo-san? She has avenged herself, her husband, her countrymen, by cutting off Holofernes’ head.”

Those much-admired purple eyes flickered to Shibata, and Rikako murmured in reply, her tone one of fascination, “Sensei, she looks almost aroused by death.”

“Almost?” Shibata laughed, straightening his lean frame to toss his white locks over his shoulder. “Not almost. She is.”

Averting her eyes and feeling as if she had glimpsed a secret exchange, Akane could not help but shiver involuntarily a few minutes later as Rikako lightly touched her wrist and politely asked her to pass the yellow paint.

 

* * *

 

Classes wrapped up for the day, Akane headed for track club on Ousou’s outdoor fields. Even the sun-drenched features of the holographically projected turf couldn’t mask the brisk January air though, and she zipped herself into a lightweight sweatshirt as she left her dormitory building. She’d picked up track during her freshman year and had found herself hooked on the relief of it, of loosening her muscles in long-distance and relay racing after hours of gluing her bottom to a hardwood chair. Her eager steps slowed though as she noticed a profiled silhouette, just recently made familiar to her.

“Kougami-sensei.” Her address towards him came out in a rapid mumble, and she ducked her head as she fell into line with the other senior girls.

“Ah, the note-passer,” he commented, looking up idly from the paperback in his hands. Akane winced, bowing her head a little lower, and his stern eyes, as well as the furrow between them, softened a fraction. “Tsunemori-san, as I’ve just informed the other girls, I’ll be overseeing the track club this term. We’ll start with relay this week. Everyone, pair off into fours and select your first runners.”

Sinking into a crouch on the track, Akane waited her turn, visually following the elliptical path of the runners ahead of her. The first loop. The second. 

Completing the third loop, Yuki’s white sneakers pounded the ground beside her, and she grabbed the baton, her own sneakers setting off dust from the surface beneath. In the lane beside her, Akane could see Kaori taking off with a two-second lag. From either side though, no one else was gaining on her, and Akane blew a tuft of her bangs out of her eyes as she hurtled into the home stretch.

As she rounded the final curve though, ten meters from the finish line, she caught sight of Kaori’s figure, no longer upright but hunched on the ground, fallen baton having rolled away from her friend’s hand.

Twisting around, Akane reversed her direction and stooped to crouch next to Kaori. Two other girls sprinted past them as she slung Kaori’s left arm over her shoulder, making sure to grab her friend’s baton as well.

“Hey, you alright?”

“Just a stumble,” Kaori answered as they started a lopsided walk together. “Probably a bit out of shape too from winter break.”

With a small grin, Akane said, “Yeah, me too. My mom was making these giant bowls of udon nearly every day before I came back to school, and she’d watch as I ate so I couldn’t even slip any of it to Dad.”

They made their slow, shoulder-to-shoulder way to the finish line, panting but smiling as they crossed it. At the curved stripe of white, Kougami was waiting for them, his evaluation indecipherable as his eyes took in the pair.

“Do you not care for the spirit of competition, Tsunemori-san?”

Still short on breath, Akane rested her hands on her knees for a moment, finding it easier to look at the ground than at him.

“This wasn’t a real race, sensei,” she said at last, straightening her back and scanning the faces around her. “Besides, we got third place. Respectable, I think, even if this had been a real race.”

Mild amusement and the dipping sun on the horizon lightened the blue of his gaze as he tilted his head to acknowledge her point. His voice reverted to a sober distance quickly though.  “I don’t disagree. Hopefully, you’ll never have to be in a real life situation where you have to choose between your teammates and your greater objective.”

 _What a strange man_ , Akane thought, scrunching her brow as she looked up at him. Aloud, she said, slightly insolent though she sensed that he wasn’t the type to mind, “What greater objective could there be than to stick by your friends?”

So he could smile, she discovered as she observed the expression briefly shift the stoic lines of his jaw.

“I envy your idealism, Tsunemori-san,” he conceded and turned away. In the dimming light of day, Akane found her eyes flicking back to him, again and again, as she pondered how... _personal_ his inflection sounded, as if he weren't remarking on her performance at all but on his own experiences. People were usually so much easier to read these days, preferring to voice their opinions as clearly as possible to avoid over-thinking and risk of resultant cloudiness of their hues. Kougami's words had felt more akin to a test though, the kind that had her worrying her lip in response. 

 

 

And from a distance, above them, behind a window that overlooked the field, another teacher watched them both with a smile of piqued interest and anticipation.

 


End file.
